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[CurtisCee]

MC9 categorizes RealAudio Metafiles (.RAM) as Video.  Is this going to be fixed in future versions?  Does the beta fix this?  Thanks in advance for everyone's answers.

My guess is that the M following the .RA was thought to reference Movie.  But because of the proprietary .RAM format, I cannot edit the song data and save it internally like MP3 files.  Terence Trent Darby saved his legally downloadable songs in the format because of this very inability to edit the tags.  Conversion promises reduced quality, and I don't believe MC9 can convert the format anyway.  And using a 3rd-party app doesn't rid any conversion quality problems.  If MC9 could correctly identify the song as Audio without any tweaks on my part, then the issue would be resolved.  Renaming the file extension doesn't work because MC9 seems to identify the format internally.  Even dragging and dropping the files into the Audio view doesn't remove it from the Video view.  I could change the media type label to include audio and video, but that workaround only adds all of my true videos to the view, which I don't want.  I want to isolate the true audio files from the true video files, but currently MC9 removes all of the .ram audio files from the Audio view.

To test this for yourself, here are the following links:

Terence Trent Darby's Official Site:
Like Prince did, he has a new name: Sananda Maitreya.  He has made available legal downloads of his songs in the .RAM format.  Click on "WildCard" from his site:
http://www.sanandapromotion.com/

.RAM definition:
http://whatis.techtarget.com/fileFormatR/0,289962,sid9,00.html

[Marko]

I don't think this is possible in v9.0, but for sure, with v9.1, the "media type" field is editable.

I had this exact problem with some webradio streams and this fixed them up a treat

If you're a little nervous of the super-new .228 beta, try the .226 as it really is pretty stable and has some other nice additions into the bargain.

If you do try it, do remember to back your library up before hand as there's no going back, and be prepared to lose any view schemes etc you had.

The choice, as they say, is all yours

[CurtisCee]

I figured out a workaround and am feeling fairly impressed with myself considering that I am a newbie (to this forum at least) and everyone proved to be so equally stumped that they couldn't even spit out a reply.  (An exception of thanks goes to Marko with his suggestion of checking out the betas.  Course, geeks like us have so much pride that we MUST resolve ).  So for anyone having the problem, here's the SIMPLE workaround to this issue.  I edited the default "Audio" View Scheme Group so that the Search Criteria read "[media type]=[audio] or [Artist]=[Terence Trent D'Arby]" rather than merely "[media type]=[audio]".  This now resulted in a listing of all TTD files under Audio, regardless of its format.  Similiarly, I edited the default "Video" View Scheme Group so that the Search Criteria read "[media type]=[video] -[Artist]=[Terence Trent D'Arby]" rather than merely "[media type]=[video]".  This now resulted in a listing of video that no longer included TTD .RAM audio files in error.  Course, this workaround is quick and effective only if you have .RAM files from one or a few artists that need to be correctly identified.  However, until this bug is fixed by the developers, this workaround is both pleasing and satisfactory.  I remain a true fan of Media Center and constantly recommend it to friends, family and coworkers as my preferred MP3 media jack-of-all-trades.  In fact, I always encourage them to purchase the full version as I did to fully enjoy it.  Judging from the posts, all of you are apparently aware of the brilliance of Media Center: that even in the toughest scenarios, it provides such robust functionality that workarounds such as mine are more possible and likely than not.  I look forward to this bug being resolved in future versions, but Media Center has already stepped up to the challenge.  Kudos!

[sraymond]

Changing the "media type" is definately the way to go...  otherwise, you'll need to keep adding to your view scheme each time you find another anomaly.  I've done this about ten times without any trouble.

Scott-

[CurtisCee]

I agree.  Thanks Scott.  I'll wait for 9.1 to get out of beta before I take advantage of its editable "media type" field.  In the meantime, I'll have to live with my workaround.  Question, in the 9.1 beta that you're using, does the media type field get saved internally within the file itself, or is the Media Center database solely updated?  I ask for a probably obvious reason: if I had to import those files from scratch for whatever reason on another computer, I'd want Media Center 9.1 to automatically obtain the media type information from the file rather than be forced to re-edit the field again for all such files that currently have the anomaly.  It's the classic issues with such formats as non-editable .WAV files which cannot store such information, though the Media Center database is updated locally.  Thanks.